by TP Fielden
‘Her clothes weren’t wet.’
‘But if somebody had brought her? By boat, for instance?’
‘Why would they want to do that, Athene?’ But already Miss Dimont was absorbing the idea, recognising the moment for what it was – an abstract notion and not a fact, given to Athene as a gift from the ether. It had happened before.
‘She came by boat,’ repeated Miss Dimont reflectively. ‘Yes.’
‘I often wonder about ravens,’ said Athene, ‘don’t you?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Dimont, who had other things on her mind. ‘They …’
‘When they circle it often signifies a death. I didn’t see any at Todhempstead Sands.’
Well, no surprise there, thought Judy, but didn’t like to say it so she changed the subject. ‘Do you know I’d never even heard of the Chinese Singing Teacher, and I must have walked past Bosun’s Alley a million times?’
‘Mr So is a very private person,’ said Athene, smiling across the room to where the bearded old gentleman stood quite still, attentive to their needs but spiritually in another place.
‘Then something else. I came across the most extraordinary woman this afternoon. She was dressed almost like a kind of soldier – tall, military, hair like a brush. Apparently she’s quite famous, Ursula Guedella. I’d never heard of her. She seems to be in charge of …’
‘The Sisters of Reason,’ said Athene.
‘Well!’ said Judy, exasperated. ‘How on earth do you know about them? You’re not secretly a Sister yourself?’
‘They came in here one night two or three weeks ago,’ said Athene. ‘Most unpleasant.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Rather manly, some of them. The rest were flibbertigibbets. Mr So is far too kind, but I could tell he did not like having them in here. They made such a commotion, it had a tremendously jarring effect. I had to leave.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Miss Dimont, absorbing this, ‘how many were there?’
‘Six or seven.’
‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’
‘Oh yes, it was about the Paignton beauty pageant. How they were going to create a fuss and try to embarrass the girls and the organisers.’
Miss Dimont stared evenly across the table at her friend.
‘Athene,’ she said slowly, ‘you never thought to tell me about this?’
‘Well, dear,’ said Athene sweetly, pouring another cup, ‘I ration what I tell you. I receive a lot of information one way and the other, and it would be taking up too much of your time if I were to tell you every little thing.’
‘But …’
‘Very simple,’ said Athene, answering the unfinished question, ‘what they were going to do was in Paignton. Our newspaper doesn’t sell in Paignton, so why weigh you down with useless tittle-tattle? Second, they spent a lot of time talking about “the big one” but gave no clue as to what it was. Why clog up that brilliant brain of yours with puzzles that can’t be answered?’
Miss Dimont should have been able to see this point; should have thanked her friend for her courtesy in sparing her additional worries. She did not. With a peppery tone to her voice she barked accusingly, ‘Athene!’
The word echoed across the tranquil room and Judy glimpsed Mr So’s look of surprise. He hastened towards their table with an anxious expression on his face but Athene turned and smiled serenely at him, a gesture carrying a message of reassurance, and the old Chinese gentleman slid away again.
‘Athene,’ said Judy more gently, ‘one cannot dismiss the possibility that the Sisters of Reason had something to do with the death of this girl. I was talking to Angela de Mauny and she put forward the very reasonable proposition that whoever killed the girl was trying to destroy this beauty pageant business, once and for all.’
Athene was sketching a picture of a raven on the paper table-cloth.
‘In the absence of any other suspects, it’s perfectly reasonable to explore the desires and motives of the Sisters. And – Athene – you were here sitting and listening to them! What on earth did they say?’
Athene slowly finished the tail feathers with an elaborate curlicue. ‘I got up and left,’ she said. ‘I was very pained to see how Mr So hated them being there. I made a bit of a nuisance of myself gathering up my things, hoping they could sense my disapproval, they were braying and braggartly, but of course they took no notice of me at all. I said to Mr So, quite loudly, “Good Lord, Mr So, is that the time? Surely it’s long past your closing time?” I hoped they would take the hint.
‘So in answer to your question, dear, I did not take in too much of what they were saying. Anyway, it’s bad manners to eavesdrop.’
‘You see now what you missed, though, Athene. Vital information. Think of that poor girl.’
‘I don’t think a woman would kill another woman quite so violently. There are other ways.’
‘You saw Ursula Guedella,’ said Miss Dimont crisply. ‘Are you so sure?’
‘Mm …’
They said goodnight to Mr So and the Chinese Singing Teacher. The old gentleman did not give singing lessons himself, Judy learned as she paid for the tea, indeed he was sorry he could not help her in that regard, he knew nobody who did. She itched to ask why, then, his establishment was so titled, but Athene, accustomed to her friend’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge, bustled her out of the door. There were, apparently, questions which were better left unasked in Bosun’s Alley.
As they walked out into the street, Judy turned towards the office in Brewery Street and Athene suddenly disappeared, something she often did – all part of her mystery. But they had already said their goodbyes, and Judy walked on.
It was not yet ten o’clock and from across the street, further down, she could hear great gusts of noise coming through the windows of the Old Jawbones. As she approached, the thin chords of a single squeezebox cut through the heavy sound of a group of men in full voice. Just then the door opened, and as a customer wandered off into the night she could hear the words more clearly:
. . .poor Tom Bowling, the darling of our crew
No more he’ll hear the tempest howling, for death has broached him to
His form was of the manliest beauty, his heart was kind and soft
Faithful below, Tom did his duty – and now he’s gone aloft
And now he’s gone aloft …
The poignancy of the message and the sweet simplicity of the harmonies was entrancing, and without a second thought she pushed through the doorway into the crowded bar. Up one end were a dozen red-faced men, burly and muscular, with pint beer glasses in their hands, singing their farewell to poor old Tom. Though their eyes remained dry, Miss Dimont was not sure how longer hers would remain so – seeing strong men sing so delicately, so movingly, about the loss of one of their own plucked at the heart strings.
The air was thrillingly perfumed with beer and pipe tobacco and the heat was intense. The singers, some of whom she recognised from the crew of the Lass O’Doune, were bathed in sweat, their faces pinched in concentration as they sought, and found, their harmonies. Miss Dimont realised as she watched they were not really singing about the mythical Bowling but about a friend, a fellow, they had lost to the ocean. She was almost glad when their obituary was done.
There was scarcely time for the men to up their pint glasses before the squeezebox piped the opening chords to ‘South Australia’ and its noisy chorus of ‘Heave away, haul away!’ with as much passion and energy as if they were still aboard the Lass in that Force Nine gale.
‘That be yor poison, baint it?’ It was Jacky, in his hand a glass of rum.
‘Er, well …’
‘They’m bright.’
‘They certainly are. Bright,’ shouted Judy, sipping at the delicious drink. No other word seemed so apt.
Among the shanty men she spotted Cran Conybeer, skipper of the Lass, head back and lost in song. He looked like a Viking with his red beard and stocky open-legged stance. Here, a
s on his ship, he was the leader of these men – urging them on with his swinging pint glass as if they were facing a tempest, willing his crew to give that extra ounce.
Jim Butterleigh, the Jawbones’ landlord, had the usual difficulty in making himself heard as he shouted ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’ and even an energetic pull at the ship’s bell had little effect beyond telling the singers it was time to stop. The local police were wise enough to know when to leave well alone, and Friday night at the Jawbones usually lasted well into Saturday morning.
Cran Conybeer peeled away from the group and came over.
‘Come for a singalong, Miss Dimalong?’ he joked. He seemed very pleased to see her.
‘What a wonderful sound you make.’
The sea captain casually slung his arm round Judy’s shoulder and clinked glasses – she was, after all, an honorary crew member after the way she hauled in those nets – and started telling her something indecipherable about the Azores. She was only half listening, for the men had started a noisy rendition of ‘Whisky Johnny’.
‘. . . big sou’ westerly,’ ended Cran, and roared with laughter. Judy laughed too, out of politesse.
‘Time to go,’ he said, ‘we’re out again with the tide in the morning.’
‘That was lovely – the shanties. I wish I’d known, I would have come earlier.’
‘I see you like that rum.’
‘When in Rome, Mr Conybeer.’
‘What’s that? Ha! Ha! You come along a me. I’ll make sure you’re safe.’
Miss Dimont was confident that the tranquil streets of Temple Regis at 10.30 at night presented no particular threat, but did not say so, anyway she liked Cran’s faded blue eyes.
As they left the pub, the skipper’s arm still over her shoulder, his men – breaking the rules as these men would always do – burst into one last song:
Eternal Father, strong to save
Whose arm has bound the restless wave …
‘Ruddy motley crew,’ said Cran, leaning his head down so Judy could hear. He smelt of beer and good humour. ‘Listen to ’at Bill Chudleigh – missin’ the high note like he always do.’
Oh hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea …
‘You married?’ he said. ‘You haven’t got a ring.’
‘No. What about you?’
‘Widower.’ He drew her closer towards him as they walked. ‘You know, every Friday night we go in there and sing about the men we lose at sea, but there aren’t any songs about the wives who died.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Kids were only three and four. You get out of the way of talkin’ to ladies after that. I’m sorry if I was rude to you the other morning.’
‘If you were, I didn’t notice,’ said Judy and smiled up at him. In the street light he looked like a lion.
They turned the corner into the Market Square and were hit by a sharp cold gust carrying as its passengers the first raindrops of the incoming storm.
‘Bumpy in the mornin’,’ promised Cran. ‘Wannoo come for the ride, Judy?’ He didn’t really mean it.
Suddenly, the reporter stopped so suddenly that the skipper’s arm slipped from her shoulder.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I don’t suppose …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t suppose when you set sail last Tuesday you happened to notice anything on land as you sailed down the estuary?’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Anything unusual on Todhempstead Sands. You sail past there to get out to sea.’
‘Would have been too busy navigatin’. That estuary be full of sandbanks.’
‘You’re sure? That’s the day they found the body of that girl. You went out in daylight?’
‘We did, but I don’t recall anything around T’emstead. What sorta thing?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Judy and they resumed their stroll. The skipper put his arm round her shoulder again.
‘Nearly run someone down, though,’ he said. ‘Some idiot. Bloke with his girlfriend – early to be out, so early in fact she was still asleep by the look of her. Obviously he knew nothing about seamanship, he got right under our bows. Lucky to get away with it, he wor.’
Miss Dimont stopped once more.
‘Tell me that again,’ she said, all joy drained from her voice.
TWELVE
Valentine’s huge old typewriter was surrounded by a jungle of litter, as if someone had upended the contents of a wastepaper basket all over his desk. He sat amidst the debris, his face corrugated with confusion.
‘You OK?’ Betty was looking particularly attractive this morning in lime-green skirt and royal blue cardigan, the hair not quite so shiningly chrome as when she’d first applied the bleach, and the make-up not quite so patchy today, though her shoes let the side down a bit.
The young man noticed none of this. He appeared to be in turmoil.
Betty sat down in Judy’s chair and smiled winningly over the desk at him. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Mm? Oh, very well, Miss Featherstone. Very different from anything I’ve ever experienced, it’s really quite exhausting in fact. I mean, I’ve driven tanks and been on route marches, all that sort of caper, but nothing like this. It drains you.’
‘You look as though you’ve been here all night.’
‘I have. Well, since before dawn. Before that I was over at the Pavilion Theatre.’
‘The riots? That beat group? The – what’re they called?’
‘The Urge.’
Betty snorted with laughter. ‘Are they any good? I thought I’d get a free ticket and go and take a look. That Danny whatsisname – he looks quite dangerous really.’
‘Derek? Nice enough chap, bit boring really. Spent a lot of time talking to me about how he misses his mother – he’s never been away from home for so long before. They usually rehearse in her drawing … er, front, room.’ He distractedly shuffled among the litter on his desk. Whatever he was looking for, he couldn’t find it.
‘And that other chap – Boots McGuigan. Sounds so tough, so … masculine.’ She arched her eyebrows but Valentine didn’t notice, he was busy picking up crumpled copy paper from the floor.
‘No, no, you’ve got it wrong,’ he said, catching up with Betty’s conversational thread. ‘No he’s not very masculine and he’s only called that stupid name because he used to work behind the counter in Boots the Chemist.’
Betty looked so disappointed he wished he hadn’t told her. Fame has a way of distorting reality, but it is an ignorant fellow who tampers with people’s dreams.
‘What’s all that rubbish?’ asked Betty, though she could see perfectly well what it was – she’d been there herself. He’d gone out on his story without a notebook, and had to beg and borrow anything to write his notes on: paper napkins, a page from a someone’s diary, sandwich wrappers and a brown paper bag all covered in a spidery hand bore evidence of his disorganisation.
‘You forgot your notebook!’
‘Mm.’ Valentine was none too pleased at having been rumbled.
‘So what’s your story? The one you’re writing up?’
‘Can’t quite decide, that’s why I’ve been struggling a bit. Is it, Britain’s No 1 beat group terrify Temple Regis – bad? Is it, The Urge draw hordes of new holidaymakers to stuffy old Temple – good? Or is it, we’re No 1 in the Hit Parade but we’re broke and living in a van?’
Betty gave him a superior smile. It was such a pleasure to see someone else having to wrestle with an intro.
‘I think you should reveal that Danny Trouble is really called Derek and lives with his mum.’
Valentine shot her a glance. ‘That would never do, Miss Featherstone. Why shoot the fox? Everybody in town is up in arms about this beat group – either they adore the fact they’re here bringing publicity and business, or else they’re fed up with these teenagers turning up out of nowhere and running amok. Either way they’re interested, be
cause The Urge are causing a commotion. The moment you demystify them, there’s no story. No fox to chase any more.’
This went slightly over Betty’s head. ‘Has anyone said anything about their music?’
‘Oh, nobody cares about that. Actually, they’re quite good – in fact, very good. They certainly know how to put on a show. Why, I even saw a wonderful old dowager dancing around at the back of the theatre – she looked deliriously happy. She must be ninety.’
‘That’ll be old Mrs Phipps. Delirious because the theatre’s making money for the first time ever.’ Betty harboured bitter feelings about its absent proprietor, Ray Cattermole. There had been an evening when … ‘She might finally be able to get her pearls out of hock.’
Valentine started rummaging again. ‘There’s another angle here – you see I’m getting the hang of all this! – and that’s your bass player, Boots. Has some connection with that chap you interviewed – Larsson, isn’t it? He was telling me last night; I’ve got a note of it somewhere. To be honest I didn’t have a chance to get much on that, though, the boys were going out for their third encore and the screams were deafening. Those girls, Miss Featherstone! Is there anybody you’d ever scream for?’
‘You stick to Derek and his mum,’ said Betty, shirtily, getting up to go. ‘I’m off to Newton Abbot.’
Valentine didn’t hear. He was looking under the desk to see whether one of his stray notes had fallen to the floor but the search was in vain.
Time passed. The avalanche of discarded copy paper from his typewriter grew slowly, but gradually he was getting the hang of it – he plumped for ‘Temple’s Teenage Turmoil’ as his entry point and soon the story was writing itself.
‘Hello,’ said a voice some time later. He looked up to see Miss Dimont dumping her raffia bag on the desk opposite and looking radiant. It was extraordinary how, one minute, she looked almost plain and the next really quite beautiful. She had a glow to her cheeks and, more important, looked as though she had time to talk to him. She was lovely, he thought, but a bit stern too.
‘A joyous evening in the company of the Troubled One?’
